Tuesday, May 7, 2019

I Like Mike

But I'm not sure I love him.
Michael Bennet, the Democratic senior senator from Colorado, is the latest person to announce his candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.  He has an impressive record in Washington, working hard to deliver government services to his state, and he passionately believes in the dignity of public service and government by consensus, as he explained to Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC program. Bennet made a name for himself earlier this year when he tore into Texas senator Ted Cruz for pretending to be sincere about re-opening the government during a shutdown to fund first responders to natural disasters after having engineered another government shutdown in 2013 to block funding for the Affordable Care Act. 
"These crocodile tears that the senator from Texas is crying for first responders are too hard for me to take," Bennet declared on the Senate floor. "They're too hard for me to take, because when the senator from Texas shut this government down in 2013, my state was flooded. It was underwater . . ..  People were killed. People's houses were destroyed. Their small businesses were ruined, forever."
Bennet has a interesting background as the son of a diplomat and a Holocaust survivor, having been born in India and raised in Washington, D.C.  His brother James is the New York Times' editorial director.  A former superintendent of the Denver public school system, he has hands-on experience in education.  He's also on the right side of the issues when it comes to solar energy, immigration, and gay rights, concurring with the Democratic Party's liberal wing.  But he voted for the Keystone XL pipeline and he refuses to back "Medicare for all," preferring instead to simply tweak the Affordable Care Act, and neither position is going to put him in good standing with the party's base. 
Bennet would be the first Democratic presidential nominee from a Western state were he to win the nomination, a distinction that ultimately eluded his fellow Coloradan Gary Hart.  Indeed, there are many similarities between Bennet and Hart. Both have represented Colorado in the Senate - Bennet holds Hart's old seat - both have waxed rhapsodic about the virtues of public service, and they even share the same birthday (November 28).  But whereas Hart was charismatic and glamorous, Bennet is about as engaging as your next-door neighbor, and if you live in an exurban subdivision, he may even look like your next-door neighbor.  Hart famously declared his candidacy for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination standing on a boulder in Red Rocks Park outside Denver and emulating the very image of the rugged Westerner he was trying to convey.  Bennet doesn't exude Western Americana; he comes across as the prep-school student that he was.  So, yes, I have doubts that Bennet can go all the way in this marathon presidential contest, given his undeniable Middle American blandness. 
Still, such blandness may be just what the Democrats need to get the White House back, and so Bennet has a shot if the party ultimately decides that that's what it wants.  And his uncharacteristically passionate attack on Ted Cruz during the last shutdown fight hints at the possibility of a street brawler beneath that preparatory schoolboy exterior.  But I still have my doubts, and while I wouldn't count him out, I still don't see in Bennet a Democratic presidential candidate that can get me excited enough to join his campaign and vote in the New Jersey primary.  But you can expect me to, should he be the nominee, vote for him in a general election without reservation.
And I can assume he'll get favorable press from the New York Times. ;-) ;-)
Okay, I've covered fourteen Democratic presidential candidates so far? Still a long way to go . . . 

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